No BY YOUR COMMAND this week, instead I give you pure silliness!!!
Moments of Independence, Kitchen Gadgets and Boys Toys.
By Max
Laura and Bill made their way through the corridors of Galactica; they had been called by Kara to say she had got something interesting to show them from Earth.
It had been several weeks since they had bumped into the fabled planet. Bill had assigned a huge amount of his crew to scouring every inch of the surface.
Now the halls of the ship where bulging with bits and pieces waiting for someone to find out what they were and how they worked. So far various goods had been scanned and made to work, some useful - others not, but they were all on a learning curve and the mysteries of the planet were slowly revealing themselves!
The humans weren't the only ones tinkering with equipment either, the Cylons had got right into taking things apart and rebuilding them. Laura smirked to herself as she thought about it, I bet they didn't have several screws and a spring left over like Bill did when he brought home something shiny with a plug!
The only trouble now, was that their quarters were overflowing with stuff that Saul had sent over in the hope of getting back in Bill's good books. Nothing was working though; the latest offering had been thrown in the corner although to be fair not every thing had been, some Bill made far too much use of.
Even Laura had been dismissive of the new contraption that had appeared. How ridiculous was it to have a machine to shave with! As she stood in front of Bill gently shaving his chin they had both wondered aloud how on Earth that had caught on!
This gift had done nothing to improve relations between the two men. Laura remembered the conversation well…
"You know you are going to have to talk to Saul sooner or later," Laura suggested.
"No I frakking don't," Bill blustered.
Laura sighed wishing she hadn't said anything and mumbled, "Here we go again!"
"I still can't believe I didn't spot he was a tin can earlier, his hair went silver years ago, way before it should have!"
Laura laughed out loud, "Just cos his hair went grey!"
"AND…" His finger pointing up in the air to intensify the word, "Now he only has one eye!!! If the secret had gone on much longer it probably would have started to glow red, he is becoming a real life toaster!"
"Bill, don't be silly."
"He never really did like the human race now I think about it," he said as if the thought just struck him.
"What about Ellen?"
"Exactly!! I rest my case."
Laura raised her eyebrows, "Well, you may have a point on that one."
Laura was brought back to the present when she stubbed her toe on one of the hundreds of boxes now stacked high throughout the corridors of Galactica, she looked down to the offending item that read 'Foot Spa' and said irritably to Bill, "Haven't we got anywhere else you can keep all this rubbish?"
"It's not rubbish!" He said kicking the box further into the wall, "and the hangar deck is full already."
"I suppose there is no chance we can get rid of some of it."
"NO, we might need it," he stated indignantly.
They reached their destination and Bill opened the door for Laura to step in, following behind and shutting the door.
In the room, Starbuck was walking round Helo, looking at his trousers. "It's great isn't it?" He was saying, holding on to the line running down them, "They give you this really sharp crease."
"Yer, I can see," Kara said in wonder.
"Only trouble with it is that it takes up a lot of room."
Kara looked up at the door as the President and Admiral walked in, she shouted across excitedly, "Sir, look at this, the trouser press Helo got working, puts the most amazing crease in your uniform!"
Laura sighed as Bill practically ran over to continue the oohs and ahhs. The President watched with mild irritation as Bill smiled along and Kara Thrace bounced around the room. She didn't know if she had just grown tired of the girl or whether 'being held hostage at gun point by her' had coloured her view but really the brashness was a little wearing at times.
"What did you get us down here for, Captain?" Laura said trying to move the meeting on.
"Yes Sirs, sorry, you know we found all those disks that appear to be some sort of media files? Well we have managed to integrate the machine into our system and we can play some of them."
"Some of them?" Bill asked.
"Yes Sir, a lot of them are just too badly damaged to play at all, others we have tried are poor quality but we can get snippets, some seem perfectly fine," Helo reported back.
"What's on them?" Laura asked.
"Various seem to be entertainment, others documentary, obviously at the moment these are the ones that interest us. We have made a list of the ones with labels; unfortunately some have no markings on at all." Helo said, handing Laura one of the boxes. She opened the outer case and looked at the shiny disk inside; the label that was still there had unfortunately bleached away leaving no writing visible at all.
"Anyway," Kara said with a big grin across her face, "We came across the disk we are about to show you and though it could be significant."
"Let's sit down shall we." Bill said pulling over a chair for Laura and then himself.
"Here we go, lots of it has been lost and the quality is bad, sorry."
As the display lights up, visible on the screen is some sort of news briefing much like the ones that Laura held herself, a woman was talking to a room full of reporters. Laura sighed the press seem to be the same everywhere you went, and then the thought struck her, these people were all dead, long gone, she listened to the grainy, poor quality sound.
...so far the phenomenon has not caused any damage. In all likelihood it won't.....everyone should remain calm.
Take cover where you can but the important thing is not to panic.
The picture greyed out but the audio continued…
...we have a fix on three different occurrences about to appear over American cities. One is headed toward Los Angeles...
...the other two are on our Eastern seaboard headed towards New York and Washington D.C...
At that point the film and audio gave out, and Helo turned to the President and Admiral, "we have more snippets if you will just wait a moment."
"Of course, carry on." Laura turned to Bill, "What do you think?"
"I have no idea, occurrences? Could mean anything."
The next clip had both leaders leaning forward to get a better look at the damaged scenes but it only lasted a second, they got a brief glimpse ofdark clouds and protruding through them was the underbelly of a colossal ALIEN CRAFT. Then clip turns to the streets below with people running about in utter this point the picture and sound dropped out again.
"Frak!" The Admiral whispers.
Bill and Laura turn to each other in horror, and Laura speaks, "Can it be true?"
He never gets to answer as the picture returns but only for a second. It showed a woman being quickly ushered into a helicopter, the sound was difficult to hear but Laura was sure she heard her called the first lady, but first lady of what, Laura didn't know.
"Does that woman remind you of anyone?" Kara whispers to Helo.
He frowned and said, "Nah but the suit she is wearing is just like the ones the President wears."
"You think," noticing how short the skirt was, she muttered, "they do both have great legs?" She smirked.
Helo, not wanting to get into a discussion about any ones legs, ignored her.
The scenes are now showing massive destruction as the alien crafts destroyed everything insight, there are clips of alien space crafts hunting down human ships. A laboratory full of alien gadgets and a very odd doctor called Okun.
Its at this point Laura takes a deep breath and sighs, "It's fake!"
"How do you know?" Bill asked.
"Oh come on, how the hell could someone film those crafts flying like that?"
"Perhaps they have some sort of built in cameras?"
"O.K. people, lets get real here," she said as they all stared at her open mouthed, really could her military be this gullible? "Doctor Okun? Let's just think about him shall we, I refuse to believe that there is anyone more weird and odd than Gaius Baltar."
She watched the truth filter into their eyes, and they all started to smile and at the ridiculousness of the situation. "For a while there, I thought we had found the reason for the destruction of the planet!" Bill stated.
"Just as well, I'm here then," She smiled at Bill, "Are they all like this?" She asked Helo.
"Ah, no some are definitely factual, we have seen documentaries about animals and places, let me get you the list," Helo flapped in embarrassment that they had made such fools of themselves.
"Ah, I just need to….won't be a minute," Bill said quietly to Laura, who leaned over and whispered, "I told you not to have that third cup, that damn cappuccino machine is wrecking my sleep patterns you're up and down all night like that new toy thing that Kara found and keeps in her pocket all the time!
Bill looked across with a confused frown on his face, "What?"
"Kara what is that string thingy you found on Earth called?" Laura shouted across to the woman.
"This ma'am?" Who pulled out a shiny red object and let it fly out of her hand before it whipped back in again. She, waiting till Laura nodded and shouted back, "Said it was a yoyo on the packet!"
"Yoyo, that's it, up and down like a yoyo," She smiled triumphantly, "That's rather good isn't it?"
"Hmn," Bill muttered as he got up before walking in the direction of the nearest head.
Laura watched in amusement as he left, the new machine, which had been one of the better finds from Earth, she had to admit, seem to have Bill in a frenzy and he always had a cup of frothy liquid in his hand and a white moustache on his lip, she smiled as she remembered it was rather fun licking it off!
Her thoughts were interrupted by the bulky figure of Helo standing in her light. He handed her a sheet of paper, and said, "Here we go Madam President, we recovered about one hundred disks from this location, but when we opened them a lot had already perished these are a list of the ones that survived although there are some others that aren't labelled."
Laura read though the list of odd sounding titles, her eyes caught one in particular, "Tit anic?" She read out loud in shock.
Helo looked round at Kara in panic and stuttered, "Ah, we think, that maybe one word Madam President, the label was badly damaged," He sent daggers at a grinning Kara, he had toldher to leave that one off the list! "We plan to make that, one of the first we check out," he added.
"I bet you do," Laura mumbled continuing though the list.
" Dallas?" She questioned, she had hear that word before somewhere.
"Yes, Ma'am that is the name of one of the main cities on the planet," Helo supplied.
"Oh yes, I remember, o.k. well, it sounds like some sort of guide to the city, it might give us some insight, can we have number 69 on the list, next please?"
"Of course Madam President."
"Let's wait for the Admiral to return, I think he might enjoy this sort of thing."
"I'll get Kara to get it ready for you both." Helo said before turning toward the girl at the front and bellowing, "The President and Admiral want number 69."
"Do we need to watch?" She pouted, "Only Lee wanted to show me his bread maker," Kara finished, as she rummaged though the boxes.
Bill came quietly back in, before any answer was returned for Kara, he sat back down next to Laura, and whispered, "I'm a bit peckish, shall I pop back to our quarters and bring back that corn pop maker?"
"Not now, Bill, remember the Doctor said you should lose some weight? And its pop corn… I think? Anyway, I thought you had run out of all the packets that came with the damn thing?"
"I have one more left!" He winked, "Besides I have all the teams down there looking for more."
Laura turned to glare at him and said in a dangerously low voice, "You have the teams on the surface searching for pop corn?"
Bill gulped, "Other things too!" waiting for Laura to turn away before muttering wickedly, "Milk powder for my cappuccino obviously."
Laura sighed and made a mental note to ban anymore essential (as Bill had informed her) but utterly useless pieces of machinery in the cabin with them. "At any rate," she stated frustrated, "they're putting on the next film; you'll enjoy this, it's all about one of the Earth cities."
"Goody!" Bill grinned.
"Found it," Kara cried, waving the black box in the air, before putting the film in the machine and turning it on. As the blank screen started to count down the numbers Kara flopped down irritate to watch next to Helo and read the label, "Gods this is dull, all about some tourist guides journey round a long dead city."
"What's it called it?"
"Debbie does Dallas."
I'm hoping you might have found it amusing?